


The Art of War

by Zilchtastic



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-06
Updated: 2010-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilchtastic/pseuds/Zilchtastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Art of War, All's Fair in Love and War, Good God Y'all What is it Good For; Spike's heard them all. Always seemed stupid to him, this prettying up of things, as if war is anything more than the satisfaction of fire in your veins and blood beneath your fingernails and your enemy lying still at your feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of War

**Author's Note:**

> Written while watching season six. My only Buffy piece to date.

The Art of War, All's Fair in Love and War, Good God Y'all What is it Good For; Spike's heard them all. Always seemed stupid to him, this prettying up of things, as if war is anything more than the satisfaction of fire in your veins and blood beneath your fingernails and your enemy lying still at your feet.

But this thing with the Slayer isn't war, he reminds himself. This is... wooing, it is. This is _love_.

Then again, Love is a Battlefield.

Buffy gets it, is the thing. He's _sure_ she gets it-- she's as dirty as him, even if she likes wearing the white hat and charging in to play hero with her little friends. She's as knee-deep in the filth as he is, and that's what he's always liked about her. Well, that and the awesome right hook. _Well_, the awesome right hook and the tight pants. Point is, Buffy is bloody and dirty and _alive_, so alive that it burns him like sunlight.

_She made me feel human,_ he remembers Angel saying. _That's not something you just forgive._

Spike isn't going to forgive it either, because it hurts, but that's the thing about Spike:

He likes it when it hurts.

And he's pretty sure Buffy knows it.

So every time she hits him, he feels a little closer to winning the battle. Every time she makes him bleed, he tastes victory along with the copper.

He supposes there _is_ something of an art to this war. It's his favorite kind of masterpiece, all done in blood-red.


End file.
